


the usual suspects

by antistar_e (kaikamahine)



Category: Social Network (2010) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, F/M, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-05
Updated: 2011-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 22:25:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaikamahine/pseuds/antistar_e
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has the capacity for murder. Everyone. [serial killer!AU].</p>
            </blockquote>





	the usual suspects

**Author's Note:**

> Written for yellowwolf5, who prompted me with Andrew/Jesse/Emma, _how can I stand here and not be moved by you._
> 
> This keeps to absolutely no particular timeline. Warnings for serial killers and all that that implies.
> 
> You can read the full story of how this fic came to be, and other assorted notes on it [@ my LJ](http://antistar-e.livejournal.com/570436.html?format=light).

-

 

They run into Freema at a thing in Utah.

He says "thing," mainly because he doesn't actually know what it is. He was told earlier this week by his agent to show up, make an appearance, smile at some people, and try not to flash his arse or get caught with anybody underage and anything not USDA-approved. Which is probably why they sent Jesse with him. Andrew's pretty sure that his agent and Jesse's agent fully encourage these playdates because it means more free time for them.

"They're going to get married," he says gleefully. "They're going to fall in love and get married and run off and we'll never see them again, _Jesse,_ we're brilliant! Look at us, we're matchmakers!"

"You're ridiculous," Jesse mumbles back, surreptitiously tilting his body in the opposite direction, possibly because they're in public and Andrew's talking very, very loudly and excitedly.

Which is how Freema finds them, cutting through the convention center's lobby and beelining right for them. Andrew recognizes her teeth before his mind places the rest of her: the only people who have teeth that white belong to the entertainment industry or politics. Andrew's general reaction towards Freema as a person will usually go two ways: he will want to grab on to her and hug her and hold her close because she is so cute and fluffy that he gonna die, or he will want her to put him on her arm so he can be her accessory to everything, so long as she gets to wear stunning clothes and say quippy things; he will be quite happy simply to bask in her proximity.

When she's about a stone's throw away, her smile suddenly turns mischievous, and she changes direction, going to Jesse instead.

"Hi!" she goes, her whole demeanor both shy and earnest at once, and if Andrew wasn't so confused as to what she's doing, he would almost weep in relief -- the mother tongue is such a beautiful thing to hear when one's been surrounded by Americans for too long. "Jesse Eisenberg, right?"

"Yes?" goes Jesse, like he isn't certain this is the answer she wants.

She brightens. "Oh my gosh, this is so cool. I loved you in Zombieland! And the Social Network, too, although I think your costar was a bit of a tit."

"Hey!" Andrew protests, and now Freema looks at him, grinning broadly.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, walking into his full-body hug; she and Jesse are the same height, so she has to go onto tiptoe or risk cracking her neck trying to tuck it over Andrew's shoulder. "Salt Lake is a bit far from your beaten path, isn't it?"

"Says the girl who's completely on the wrong side of the pond, and I love what you did to your hair, I need it because of reasons. Jesse, do you think we'll interrupt our agents' honeymoon if we scalp Freema Agyeman?"

"I think you should probably ask permission from Ms. Agyeman first, before we go unpack our barber shop tools," Jesse deadpans, with absolutely no change in facial expression.

Freema's eyes swing back and forth between them like a tennis match, amused and tolerant in turns.

She says, "They're filming a two-episode arc for Doctor Who out in the badlands."

Andrew almost breaks something, he reacts so fast. "Are you making a guest appearance? Oh my _god,_ will there be more of you on my television soon?"

"No, no, no, no," she says quickly. "I'm just here for moral support."

"Ahh," goes Andrew, understanding. "You're either dating, working with, or otherwise best mates with someone who _is_ out here. I understand perfectly," he says solemnly, and he and Freema exchange the looks familiar to all British-born actors everywhere; the only thing more incestuous than the British actors' guild is the British monarchy, and only then, just barely.

"What about you?" she asks, tilting her head, sending her braids cascading over one shoulder. "Why are you here?"

"Because we're only marginally more aesthetically pleasing than the furniture," Jesse offers, still feigning total seriousness.

"They called us because they were afraid there weren't going to be enough seats at this thing," Andrew agrees, slinging an arm around Jesse's shoulders. "So they hired us to be loveseats for the rich and famous. Would you like one? Jesse here makes a delightful pillow, I should tell you about that one time we were filming in Boston, with that bloke who I swear was a test-tube clone of Freddie Mercury and the pineapple?" He gives Jesse a shake. "Remember that?"

"I really wish I didn't," says Jesse dryly.

Privately, Andrew has to agree. They'd lost the guy's eyeballs sometime during dismemberment, which made them nervous and panicky that they were going to turn up in somebody's cocktail somehow, until Andrew found them behind the toilet three days later, disintegrated into piles of goo and smelling a lot like raw eggs gone off.

 

-

 

They run into Freema again later that night.

Or, rather, by sheer happenstance, she is coming out of an elevator at the exact moment that Andrew and Jesse are getting into one; she's in a swimsuit, towel over one shoulder, face clean of make-up, and card key for the pool in her hand, and he sees her before she sees them. Andrew's thinking of three things: giving time zones the middle finger and calling Emma; the absolute, comfortable, soul-warming anticipation of deep sleep; and Jesse, the latter two he's trying to accomplish by leaning most of his weight into Jesse while staring right through the up arrow on the elevator, willing it to hurry up.

He's not really thinking about it, so when the two elevators ping open simultaneously, he just pushes Jesse inside with a hand to his chest, reaching out to the side with the other hand to hit a button and hoping vaguely it's for the right floor, and then leans in to drag his nose and mouth along the soft curve of muscle in Jesse's neck.

Jesse clamps his hands down on Andrew's arms, nails digging hard into his biceps, and behind them, the elevator doors glide shut.

"She saw us," he says between his teeth. "Freema, I mean, she was just -- she saw us."

Andrew bumps the underside of Jesse's jaw with his nose and replies, very soft, "Good."

Pulling away, he catches sight of Jesse's bent-down brows, which turns his frown as dark as thunderclouds. The look he gives Andrew is unreadable.

"Wouldn't you rather," Andrew says very softly. "Have her thinking about this --" he gestures between them. "-- than knowing the truth?"

Jesse's eyelids flicker, but they don't say anything else until they're keyed into their room, the lock heavy and deadbolted behind them. Andrew lobs the room key towards the table and then spins on his heel, catching Jesse mid-stepping out of his shoe, heel half out. He skates the flats of his hands up Jesse's ribs, leaning in to kiss his cheek, which is hollow and feels clammy.

"She's one of us, Jess," he murmurs in response to the worry clouding Jesse's eyes. "She's not going to say anything. People are --"

"Lulled into a sense of security when they think they know something," Jesse finishes, nodding hard and brushing their cheeks together. "People like having a secret. They like knowing other people's more."

"And now Freema thinks she has ours. Let her believe that the thing we're trying to hide from everybody is that we're big, gay, flaming homosexuals --"

"-- that's a redundant statement," Jesse points out. "Three times over."

"I prefer to be repetitive for emphasis," he replies, moving to the soft hollow of skin underneath Jesse's ear. "I like Freema, I like her enormously, she's one of my best friends, I don't want her knowing the truth, that'd be bollocks for her."

"The truth. That our extracurricular hobbies run more towards artistic throat-slitting and less towards fellatio?"

"I like the fellatio, too," Andrew offers offhandedly, just in case there was any question, and when he pulls away, Jesse follows instinctively, hands coming up between their bodies to catch his face and hold it still. The kiss that follows is deep enough to make their jaws ache and the corners of their mouths burn. Andrew shamelessly goes seeking skin to grope underneath the tent that is Jesse's suit jacket, and Jesse leans his weight off-balance, still half-out of his shoe.

Eventually, they part with a slow, satisfying smack of their mouths.

"Come on," says Andrew, backing away and heading for his backpack. "Let's call Emma and make her jealous with all the eye candy we got to ogle today!"

"You're lying. You just want to ask her opinion on that enthusiastic discussion you had with the tall, muscular half of the Iron Man 2 cast --" he talks right over Andrew's puzzled _but that's all of them_ "-- about which jobs are the most ridiculous."

"No, but really, that raised some legitimate questions!" Andrew goes, setting his Macbook down on the desk and booting it up. "Like, what do you say when you go home for the holidays and your folks are like, 'hey, sweetie, what are you doing these days?' and you have to be like, 'oh, nothing much, nothing much, life at the dildo factory is still the same'. And what do your kids tell other kids at school? Come on, you have to admit Emma's face is going to be priceless."

Emma will probably answer the question seriously, and they both know it. It's just become habit by this point, to make every single possible attempt to include each other, Andrew and Jesse and Emma, in the others' lives.

And that includes their .. ah ... _extracurricular hobbies._

"And maybe after, she can watch us have sex," Jesse adds nonchalantly, just to see Andrew choke on nothing.

 

-

 

Andrew couldn't even have begun to describe what it felt like, being told he was going to work with Emma Stone. Professionally, not extracurricularly. Not yet.

And Emma, of course, surprised him.

"You want to know the real reason you got cast?" is what she had said, the first time they sat down to talk face-to-face, after a couple years of existing in each other's peripheral worlds. She crossed her legs in his direction and leaned her chin on her hand. "Because you _are_ Spiderman. You are a superhero, and a superhero is you."

"Thanks?" Andrew had returned, because he couldn't tell by her tone if it was a compliment or an insult.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," she continued. "But I'm going to draw a few parallels here. Superheroes, either directly or indirectly, wind up getting other people killed; sometimes they even have to do it themselves. They know it's unfortunate and they're sorry, but they also know the world is a better place now that it's been done. Think about it -- the higher the body count a particular superhero has, the more we're taught to admire them for their selflessness. Our culture holds glorified serial killers on a pedestal."

"So ... you're saying they cast me as Spiderman because I bear strong similarities to a serial killer?"

Emma's smile spread across her face, starting in one corner and slowly sliding to the other, and he's always going to remember this, because it's one of the most perfect moments of his life. She had leaned forward, Emma had, and he leaned in to join her, to hear her whisper, "No. It's because you kill the people you think deserve to die. You'll do the dirty work no one else wants to do."

 

-

 

Andrew couldn't tell you exactly how it works, or why, or what wire trips in his brain to make him stop seeing people as _people_ and start seeing them as potential veins to cut into, or joints to saw apart, or bodies to be buried in quiet, unforgiving mud.

The way some people have a gaydar, he supposes, he has a radar for people who are so hollow you could whisper something into their ear and hear the echo of it all the way inside. These are the kind of people who cannot, physically _cannot_ be considerate to another human being and will always deliberately cross the line, and contains pretty much the entire pantheon of paparazzi and the pushiest reporters and most rabid fans. These are the kind of people who make Jesse uncomfortable, like somehow because they're actors, they must be able to deal easier with abnormal intensity from strangers.

The radar pings when Jesse's ears go red and he starts rubbing the heels of his hands together, face drawn in like he's going to be sick. That's when it happens -- when the corners of Andrew's vision turn to static and he thinks, very clearly, _this person needs to die._

The Freddie Mercury look-alike in Boston was not the first person Andrew killed for Jesse, but he was the first one Jesse knew about, because Andrew had to tell him in case they came across the missing eyeballs somewhere unexpected.

Jesse, to his credit, believed him instantly, and had gone so still, so small and frightened that Andrew thought he was going to peel right out of his skin right there, just shuck it and run, and then he'd reached to the side, picking up the first reasonably-heavy thing his hand found (a Tardis-themed mug that the BBC had given Andrew when his guest-appearance episode aired,) and chucked it at Andrew's head. It went wide by such a large margin that Andrew didn't even need to duck, smashing against the tiles, but then Jesse was on him, eyes so wide and face so white he looked like a cadaver himself. 

He clawed at Andrew like it was Andrew's skin he was trying to peel off, not his own, shouting, and they grappled at each other until they slid down the door, winding up on the floor, locked together in something that was half an embrace and half a strangle hold.

"Don't get caught," is what Jesse kept murmuring into Andrew's hair. "Do you dare -- don't you _ever_ get caught, do you hear me?"

"Yes," said Andrew. "Yes" and "yes" and "yes," and turned his mouth, searching for a kiss, which Jesse gave hopelessly, and the both of them knew that Andrew was going to keep bringing him corpses as gifts, the way a cat will bring home a dead bird, wanting praise.

 

-

 

The turning point was Charlotte, the girl in PetsMart who cornered Jesse in the cat food aisle. She wore red Converse that were split along the sole and a Memorial Day Run t-shirt, proud sponsors littering her back, and she stood too close and talked too much, and Jesse shot a desperate look at the bags of IAMS like it would somehow stand up and rescue him.

So Andrew had come up beside him and smiled at her calmly until she decided that that was enough of a life experience and took off, soles flapping like cartoon mouths.

 _She found I carried a Beanie Baby in my backpack when I was seven,_ Jesse mumbled, fingering the price sticker on the shelf. _After that, I couldn't ever get into homeroom without somebody going through my bag. Everyone teased me -- at least,_ he offered a self-deprecating smile. _Until Ricky Toombs got caught sucking his thumb._

Even then, it wasn't a certainly, not until they were in the parking garage and Jesse said, worriedly, _do you think she comes to this store often? Would I run into her again,_ and Andrew knew he was contemplating switching to a different store, one not so close to his apartment, just to avoid the possibility of seeing her again.

So Andrew did it quietly, sitting in the dark of Charlotte's lonely kitchen, lit only by the light of her fish tank until she came home, and she made the most wonderful squeak of fear when she flipped on the light and found him there, her array of kitchen knives laid out neatly and a bone saw resting beside them. He dispatched of her swiftly, careful not to get blood on the carpet and not bothering to make it fun, because he had somebody waiting for him to come home. The fish gaped at him when he left.

He woke Jesse up, coming in late, shutting the door and heading right for the bedroom, only toeing his shoes off when he reached the base of the bed. 

The ragdoll tabby was saving his spot, and she delicately sniffed at Andrew's fingertips in hello before leaping off the bed.

 _Hey,_ he murmured, touching Jesse's hip, careful, trying not to startle. Jesse shifted over onto his back automatically, letting Andrew crawl up to hover over him and say, _She won't make anyone feel subpar ever again._

He was looking for it, so he saw it, even in the gloom -- the flash of Jesse's eyes widening and then lidding again. He stretched up, hips shifting and legs falling open to make room for Andrew, who settled against him with the ease of familiarity. _Spots the Leopard has been vindicated,_ he said after a beat, and at the time, it hadn't seemed like much, just one of Jesse's wry little statements, but remembering it makes Andrew's chest constrict, heart beating hard with fondness, because it was the first time Jesse ever really gave _approval_ of what Andrew did for him.

He touched Andrew's wrist, right underneath the cuff of his sweatshirt, where -- Andrew was surprised to find -- there was a thin stain of blood. _This hers?_ he asked quietly.

_Yeah._

Jesse scratched at his wrist with his thumb, sending dry flecks of Charlotte's blood into their bed, and Andrew pressed him down into the sheets to get their mouths together.

 

-

 

Emma, undoubtedly, is the best thing that's ever happened to them.

She's also the first person to figure it out, because she's honest enough with herself to admit that, like everyone, she has justified her own homicidal tendencies, and she recognizes that in Andrew right off the bat. Even before they hand her the Gwen Stacy role, please and thank you and would you like a complimentary pony, Ms. Stone, to go along with your general excellence and your chance to fondle Andrew Garfield on camera, she puts two and two together, because she understands Jesse just as much as she understands Andrew.

"I don't think there's any excuse for being an asshole," she explains, setting a tea cup down in front of him, the Tazo tag sticking out from under the lid. "Ever. People who cannot be considerate do not deserve to live."

"It's a pity they -- and also the law -- sometimes disagree," Andrew comments, tone mild. He wraps his hands around the tea cup. "It's enough to make me think I'm doing something wrong."

She plants her hands on the table, leaning down so that they're eye-to-eye. She smells like the red leather jacket she's wearing, which is as sharp splash of color against her grey jeans, grey boots, and monochrome-striped top.

"Which is why," she says, straight-forward. "You must make not getting caught your top priority."

"That's what I have you and Jesse for," Andrew says, and can't help it when it comes out kind of questioningly.

Emma smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkling up. "Yes. You're stuck with us now, unfortunately. But Andrew. Who will be our best friend --" she slides her hands over to cup his around the tea, and her eyes add, _our guardian, protector, killer, lover._ "-- if you're in jail?"

"Emma..."

"Do you hear me? Do not leave me and Jesse alone."

At that, he pushes himself to his feet, abandoning his tea in order to kiss her mouth, lifting her up in the same movement so that she hooks her ankles around the backs of his thighs for support, laughing into his mouth.

They wind up making out on the couch, trading ideas in between slow drags of their tongues ("I think of it kind of like I'm just ... helping evolution along," Andrew confesses, "I mean, if you weed out enough of the horrible, rotten people, then eventually the population is going to reflect that, and only the good people are going to go on to reproduce," "and eventually," Emma agrees, "it'll be the kind of world where people like us can go out in public without having our every move, every purchase, every friendship remarked upon by rude people, because everyone will learn how to be kind,") which is how Jesse finds them when he comes over.

She tenses when the key scrapes in the lock, but Andrew shushes her reassuringly. He hears Jesse's shuffle-step pause in the entryway, taking in the situation; Emma on her back on the sofa cushions, Andrew's mouth red and spread with her lipstick.

He folds his arms and smiles. "Does this mean we're keeping her?"

 

-

 

It's Emma who teaches him how to make the most out of everyday objects. She shows him how to use a nail clipper to lever up fingernails (whether the victim is alive or not is optional,) and to file off fingerprints when the necrotic flesh softens up a bit. She shows him how to use a pair of tweezers (or nose hair clippers, which actually work better, they find) to severe teeth away from the gums, and she shows him how to make an acid mix that will dissolve teeth once they remove them.

"That way," she says, "even if they dig up your bodies once they've become bones, they won't be able to identify them." She ducks her head at Andrew's admiring look, and explains, "Growing up, I used to practice on my grandmother's dogs. They were the most annoying, yappy, ugly things, and had maybe one brain cell between them. Nobody could figure out how they kept disappearing."

"You're not a dog person, I take it."

"Not a dog person," she confirms. "Which is good, because I like Jesse's cats, and he might make that terrible sad face of his if we ever tried practicing on one of his."

And because talking about him summons him, Jesse knocks on the bathroom door, startling them. "What are you guys doing in there?" he wants to know.

"Dissolving teeth!" Andrew answers, giddy with it. "Do you want to see?"

"Uh, not right now," comes the answer. "Body parts kind of kill my appetite, but there's dinner when you guys get hungry." The floor creaks when he starts to step away, and then he's back, putting his hand flat to the door and adding, "You should switch it up, by the way."

"What?"

"Don't do that every single time, I mean, the teeth-dissolving and the fingerprint-filing, or someone's going to notice a pattern."

Andrew and Emma exchange glances, and she makes a _I didn't think of that_ face.

"Good idea. Thanks, Jess!"

"Yeah. Um, I'll leave you to it, but. Curry's on the stove."

 

-

 

A couple months after the thing with Freema, they're in a hotel in Seattle for a similar kind of thing, and Andrew calls Jesse shortly after midnight.

"You need to come out here."

"Is this a 'bring a shovel and don't ask questions' kind of summons?" Jesse asks, a yawn cutting through the middle of his sentence and obliterating some words. Parked outside with Emma behind the wheel, Andrew watches the light flick on in Jesse's room. The sky hangs dark, low, and Andrew can't tell if it's a full cloud cover (it's Washington, so probably,) or just a very starless sky.

"This is a, 'you need to come downstairs and get in the car so we can go to the store and buy a shovel' kind of scenario," he answers.

"... right," says Jesse.

When he pushes out through the door, doing the last loop on his belt and wearing a shirt with an abstract screenprint that Emma points at and crows, "I know who you stole that from!", he's got his game face on, his brows set low and his mouth flat, pulled in at the corners. He doesn't look anxious at all.

This is Jesse. He panics at complicated things like trying to figure out how to order something from a Starbucks menu or how the entree options at Panda Express work, but present him with something as outlandish and outrageous as, "well, I'm still not quite sure where his eyeballs went, but he doesn't need them anymore, so I think he'll be okay," and he just takes it in stride.

Jesse is nervous at interviews, at discussion panels, at read-throughs with people he really wants to impress (which is everybody,) and even out with his friends. He's nervous when he sees a cop in the rearview and he's nervous when his cats cough and he's nervous when his toilet makes funny noises in the middle of the night, but standing in the middle of a too brightly-lit Costco with Andrew, comparing prices on shovels, and he's perfectly calm. He and Andrew pass one back and forth, trying the grip and testing the blade, and Jesse scowls when he looks at the price sticker.

"You know, some actors buy Lambourghinis, or beach houses in Palm Springs, or a surround sound stereo system," he comments, picking at the barcode like he might trick it into giving him a bargain, and Andrew shoots him a fond smile, because Jesse wouldn't buy any of those things in a million years. "And here I am, buying shovels. I wonder how much of our accumulated wealth we've spent on these, do you think?"

"Hello, gentlemen," says the lone cashier when they make their up to her. "Find everything all right?"

"Yes, ma'am," says Andrew, blurring into his American accent because it's less memorable. "Thank you."

"I don't think we're expecting any snow," she comments, turning the handle over so the scanner can read the barcode. "You just getting prepared?"

"Yes, ma'am," says Andrew again, and sees in his peripheral Jesse ducking his head, worrying his bottom lip in an effort not to smile. "It's always best to be prepared. You can't bring a shovel and not ask questions when you don't have a shovel," because honesty is always the best policy, and the more ridiculous the truth is, the less likely people are to believe it. Sure enough, the cashier chuckles and tells them their total.

The best way to hide is right in plain sight.

"Seriously, though," says Jesse conversationally on their way out the store, shovels slung over their shoulders. "This is where all my spare change goes. Well," he corrects. "This and my therapists, who I can't actually talk to because I can't tell them the truth, which guilts me into getting more therapists, but at least I get more out of them than I do these shovels, which I just have to get rid of."

"Well, this is easier than trying to get them through airport security," Andrew answers, all put-upon wisdom. "That would just be confusing. 'Excuse me, sir,'" he goes, deepening his voice. "'What are you doing with that shovel? It doesn't fit into the overhead bin.' 'Well, see,'" he adopts his own accent again. "'Jesse here gets tired of having to buy a new shovel every time we have to make a grave, so I've just taken to carrying this one around with me everywhere, is that all right, mate?'"

"If you didn't insist on killing people, then we wouldn't have to keep on buying new shovels," Jesse points out, and Andrew gives Emma a long-suffering look when he climbs back into the car.

 

-

 

Here's a trick of the trade:

If you don't happen to have a dark, convenient heavily wooded area nearby, or somewhere equally secluded and not bothered by a lot of foot traffic, then the best place to bury a body is on the edge of an airfield, just beyond the fence at the end of the strip. Airports are extremely well lit, but all those lights are pointing inwards to direct plane traffic, which means you could have a dozen people standing out on the tarmac, and they wouldn't be able to see a single thing of what goes on beyond the fence, not with those bright lights shining in their eyes.

There's no reason to develop the land immediately surrounding an airport, either, since any structure would be in danger of low-flying aircraft, so there's always usually soft, uncultivated mud right beyond the fence, and with any luck, nobody will find the corpse for another fifteen, twenty years.

Keep your lights off and your radios silent, and it's almost pathetic, how easy it is.

The guy in the trunk is as broad across a football player and easily twenty-two stone, so it takes all three of them to spread the tarp out on the ground and then haul him onto it so they can wrap him up. Andrew can't distinguish any of his features in the dark, and doesn't need to -- the important thing is that he's dead, he's paid his price, and he can't intimidate anyone anymore. His eyelids have been stitched over, his lips sewn together, using threads of various colors, like some macabre version of Joseph's Coat of Many Colors.

"That was me," says Emma happily, when she catches Jesse running his thumbnail along the thread, testing its strength. "I thought I should get some practice, in case I ever had to suture someone for some reason. Doesn't it look cool?"

"Looks creepy," Jesse nods, and Emma beams, bouncing her shoulders in an _aw shucks_ gesture. She's the one who likes to play with her food, and treats her corpses like canvas.

They fold the tarp up around his head and feet and then roll him up like a mummy burrito, where they leave him and grab the shovels. They tap along the ground until they find a spot where the earth is mostly mud, soft enough to turn easily but not quite runny enough that it'll lose its shape. Good grave-digging dirt, right along airports.

"Out of curiosity," says Jesse, as they dig. "What did this guy do to piss you off?"

"You don't recognize him?" Andrew asks, but it's rhetorical. It's impossible to see anything in this kind of dark. "He was making you nervous, earlier, scoping you back in the restaurant, I saw it, and it _infuriated_ me, because --" he tilts his head, sees Jesse's shape tilt his own in response, listening. "Because you shouldn't have to be nervous, Jess. The kind of people who would threaten you, of all people, are the kind that don't deserve to live, and I want to make you a world where you don't have to be nervous."

"You can't make me happy by killing everyone that makes me unhappy, Andrew," Jesse murmurs, quiet. "But thank you."

The Emma-shape edges along the line of the grave, nudging him with her elbow. "Still," she goes, a smile in her voice. "Wasn't he beautiful?"

"I must admit," Jesse replies. "I like other people best when they just stay quiet."

 

-

 

"Do you ever wonder how we wound up like this?" Andrew grunts, as they heave the corpse into the grave. It lands with a sickening crack, bones breaking under its own weight. "Doing this, I mean. Do you think it's a defective gene, or something, and if we'd been born without it, maybe we would be doing ordinary actor things, like snorting coke off Emma's tits?"

"Hey!" and Emma jabs him, hard, at the soft part of his stomach, making him flinch away reflexively. "There will be no snorting coke off of Emma's tits at any time, thank you very much."

Andrew turns and says to Jesse, "Emma here says it's because I've always wanted people to look up to me, so I emulate American superheroes, who are lauded for killing bad people."

"Actually," deadpans Jesse, as they start filling the grave again, dirt raining down on the tarp covering. "It's your eyebrows. It's a known fact -- anybody with eyebrows like yours will be a serial killer. Always."

Andrew chokes, and then starts laughing so hard he has to prop himself up on his shovel to stay upright.

"Thank you for that, Jesse," says Emma, dry and affectionate.

"Stalwart in the face of murder and mayhem," Andrew agrees. "Jesse Eisenberg. Brings a shovel and doesn't ask questions."

Jesse shrugs in the dark, noncommittal. "There's not much to question, or be uncertain about, is there," he says. "You need protecting."

The declaration is said so quietly that Andrew almost misses it, or thinks he heard it wrong and extrapolated, the same way his phone labors under the delusion that every time he tells it to call Mum, it's convinced he really meant his ex-girlfriend and calls her instead. He must have heard wrong; Andrew just _wants_ to believe that the one thing that will make Jesse put aside his worries and stand up firmly is to keep Andrew and Emma safe.

He sets the shovel down and gingerly picks his way along the edge of the grave, until he's close enough to Jesse to touch.

"Hey, what?" Jesse reaches out, fingers curling around Andrew's elbow helpfully, like Andrew just got lost or something. "What is it?"

Andrew's hands are gross, gritty with dirt and the thick black blood that had leaked out around the tarp, but he's not thinking about that at all when he pulls Jesse in for a kiss, cradling his face between his palms. Jesse's shovel hits the dirt, and his arms come up to wrap around Andrew's neck, forgetting, in one familiar drag of their mouths to the other, where they are and what they're doing.

"And this, boys," Emma comments, from directly beside them. "Is exactly why we keep on doing this."

Jesse turns to her then, his long fingers curling against her face. She leans into his touch instinctively, like green, growing things arching towards sunlight, and Andrew listens to them kiss, setting his forehead against Jesse's shoulder and sighing contentedly.

"Do you think we'll ever stop?" he wants to know, like he's asking _how long do you think you'll love me_ or _how many days until the next big excuse of a gift-giving holiday?_

"Probably not," Jesse answers, one arm curled around Emma to keep her close. "Not until we get caught, and even then I'm pretty sure they'll send us to jail together, so it'll still be okay."

Andrew sucks in a breath, startled.

Jesse doesn't seem to think much of that at all, because he continues, "But I'm pretty sure there's blood on my face right now, and it's not mine, and I'm very valiantly attempting not to freak out, because that's really disgusting, and -- oh thank god," he says, when Emma produces a foil wrapper of Clorox Wipes from her back pocket.

They finish filling the grave in companionable quiet. Andrew can't stop smiling.

 

-

 

Since he was little, Andrew always figured he knew exactly how his life was going to turn out.

He would date, for a little while, for long enough, maybe try a romance or two, and then when he'd had enough of that, or got bored, he would go back and marry a best friend from childhood, purely for tax benefits -- someone to build a happy, stable home with, someone he knew he could live with for the rest of his life, even if he wasn't in love with them.

The thing about falling in love, though, is that it is extremely fucking inconvenient, even for Andrew Garfield, who takes childlike optimism and enthusiasm to an atmospheric level. 

He falls a little in love with everything he touches, from a role he's playing to a new ice cream flavor to the way blood looks when it first blooms along a cut, the way a victim will sob with fear.

And this ... this is something else entirely.

So instead of ringing up the mates he played with in school, he's here, sitting in a dining room chair kicked up onto its hind legs, as Emma sets up his Macbook next to the sink so that she can show Jesse Nicki Minaj's Super Bass. He watches Emma, whose mouth is parted in anticipation, watching Jesse watch it; the puzzled twists of his lips and twitches of his eyebrows, the expression on his face clearly broadcasting that this is the exact reason he prefers to live in another decade entirely, somewhere with a lot less "what even" and vocabulary that vaguely resembles English.

He's wearing yellow rubber gloves up to his elbows, stirring concentrated bleach into a sink of hot water. The nail clippers, files, and Andrew's knives are lined up along the sink's edge, and there's the gorgeous purple-red stain of a hickey on the back of Jesse's neck.

Everyone has the potential to be a killer.

Everyone.

But only very few people are brave enough to get away with it.

And the way Andrew sees it, you can find people to love who will love you back, sure; under the right circumstances, you can connect with and fall in love with at least 75% of the people in the world. You can find people to marry you and you can live with them for the rest of your life. You can be perfectly happy, yes, and that's beautiful.

But how many people will meet the one person they'll kill for, without hesitation, and think it's the right thing to do every time?

How many people will meet that person, and then meet another?

"I love you," Andrew says, adoration turning his voice thick with emotion, and Emma turns, her bangs curling along her forehead and her mouth spreading wide with a smile, automatic as breathing, like she can't imagine doing anything but smile at Andrew when she sees him.

She tucks her fingers around Jesse's arm, turning him away from Nicki Minaj. Her voice is coy when she says to Andrew, "We have a trivia question for you. Do you know what animal kills more human beings in the United States than all other animals combined?"

"Hmm," Andrew thinks about it, dropping his chair back down to four legs, running through what he knows about sharks, or snakes. 

Or maybe hippos? 

Didn't he hear somewhere that hippos were the most dangerous animal to come out of the African wilds? Actually, Jesse probably told him that, and besides, the last he checked, hippos weren't running around the American prairies.

"Deer," says Jesse, completely straight-faced, and after a startled beat, Andrew throws his head back, laughing long and helplessly.

Of course, of course, because of car accidents, and Emma's giggling, crossing the room to climb into the chair, wrapping her arms around his neck and murmuring in his ear, "get it, get it, get it," gleeful and toothy, and Jesse's standing in front of him, hands on his hips and his eyes soft, and when he leans down, Andrew tilts his head up to meet the kiss, Emma warm in his lap and the overhead lights burning his vision away, bright as sunlight.

 

-  
fin


End file.
